New York Fashion Week: Sustainability Edition
This New York Fashion Week season, while sustainability is still far from the nyfw status quo, it made a more pronounced appearance across runway shows and presentations compared to previous years. Coach's creative director, Stuart Vevers, emphasized in an interview with BoF that "Sustainability Has to Come From Designers," acknowledging their pivotal role in shaping collections, which I saw to be more evident this season in direct design choices to incorporate and showcase steps towards sustainability from Maria McManus ending her show with a speech on the subject or Dauphinette utilizing upcycling to rethink what pre-loved can mean. Designers prioritizing sustainability represents a crucial initial step, but genuine progress also necessitates consumer engagement and robust policies to hold brands accountable, particularly those lagging in proactive efforts. A group of industry activists, including myself, gathered outside the Michael Kors show to advocate for The Fashion Act and urge prominent brands that haven’t already done so, to sign on.
There is still a lot of industry advancement to be made, it’s also important to highlight the designers who are talking about sustainability, encouraging peers to join and get customers thinking about their own consumption. Sustainability is a journey of progress, not perfection and we should all be on the trip together!
Continue scrolling to discover who incorporated more sustainable practices in this season’s shows by employing upcycling, avoiding fossil fuel-based fabrics, and implementing other creative methods to integrate circularity into their collections.
Maria McManus- Maria McManus launched her eponymous label after seeing big brands release “sustainable” one-off collections, as she told Fast Company, “Nobody was really integrating sustainability into their big picture strategy or finding better processes at the beginning of their product development calendar.”
After her Fall 2024 rtw runway show of luxurious pieces that also had an effortless ease of wearability to them featuring garments made from traceable Australian wool called “Slowool” and a trench coat with biodegradable potato starch buttons, she spoke openly to the industry-filled room about the state of fashion right now. Sharing the quote in full as found in Harper’s Bazaar:
This collection was inspired by Eileen Gray, an Irish architect and designer, and as I was learning more about her and her life, it was so incredible to see how considered she was about every single element of what she created. If she designed a room for a client, she considered the paint color and the light fixture and the screen and the lacquer. And I think in today's world, we're being sold luxury, but I don't know that we're actually creating luxurious products that are truly considered in the way that product was considered back in the twenties. I think that the objective is more to get to a billion dollars or a hundred billion dollars. It's not necessarily about creating luxurious items that are going to last a long time. Everybody in this room knows the responsibility that we all have and that the industry hasn't been great, but it's always been like that. The fashion industry has a history of over 500 years of exploiting vulnerable people, polluting land, polluting water, but because we all consume so much more these days, the issue has become even more intensified. So we created this collection in order to shine a light on the issues that the industry has and to inspire you all to make more conscious decisions in your purchases.
Caroline Zimbalist- Artist Caroline Zimbalist debuted her first clothing collection this season. Inspired by nature, she molded her unique recipe of biodegradable and natural materials into striking and wearable garments. You can find her artwork at 1st Dibs and the Whitney Gift shop. I’m eyeing these bioplastic vessels for my own home.
Dauphinette- The Dauphinette runway collection, titled “The Vegetarian”, featured at least 50% upcycled materials, from vintage to upcycled cutlery. For shoes and accessories, designer Olivia Cheng partnered with TheRealReal and adorned bags and shoes from the reseller with pieces of rhinestones and buttons swept from the design room floor.
Bevza- Ukrainian womenswear label Bevza, presented this season’s collection at the Ukrainian Institute of America. Their commitment to sustainability is tied to every aspect of the design process from ethical manufacturing, using zero-waste technologies, deadstock fabrics, and recycled yarns.
Melke - The Fall 2024 collection from Emma Gage titled, “The Heist” took inspiration from the playfulness of claymation, Wallace and Gromit to express her gender-fluid vision of slow fashion. While developing each garment, the design team sources environmentally sustainable materials and then ethically manufactures the garments in New York’s Garment District. At the end of each lookbook, the brand lists the materials used, highlighting both their origin and makeup. To avoid overproduction, the brand cuts and sews each item to order.
And more…
Collina Strada- The label is on a self-described sustainability journey, using deadstock fabrics, recycled denim, rose silk, and for the Fall 2024 runway collection collaborated with Puma on shoes made with mushroom leather and UGGs from a corn-by-product.
Fashion non-profit, Re/Make hosted a fashion show of all pre-loved fashion modeled by featuring garment workers, activists and Re/Make ambassadors.
Coach- In an article on the recent collection with Vogue, Stuart Vevers, mentioned that he wants to bring sustainability to the forefront of the overall design process. This has already been the focus for the off-shoot label, Coachtopia which tbh I think is doing a great job of talking and educating on circularity in a fun and playful way geared towards a younger audience. We saw the start of Coach’s experimenting with sustainability in the larger collection with upcycled leather boots and jeans that were thrifted denim patched together.
Comité Colbert hosted "Sustainability in the French Luxury Industry" a panel discussion as part of a launch for their latest magazine highlighting sustainability across various French companies. (I don’t usually talk about work, should I more?) but I was lucky enough to be a part of the team that brought this to life. Vera at Sustainability Pulse shared a full recap.
Further reading: Last season, Rachel Arthur delved into the true cost of Fashion Week in a BoF op-ed, shedding light on its environmental implications.
Thank you for reading Something Borrowed, Never New- so grateful for all of you! You can also follow along on Instagram.
xx Hilliary